Freedom or Family
by SpyderScribe
Summary: After Mikey meets Jennie, after she came to the Turtles using one of her powers, she has to find the other three mutants she was housed with for so many years. Jennie is a different kind of mutant but her powers are useful in finding a winged chick, a fire manipulator and a jaguar woman with the threat of The Foot following them. (Set after Out of the Shadows).
1. Chapter 1

**Freedom or Family**

**Prologue**

_**Sack Genetics Corporation**_  
**Test Subjects**

Name: Gina Abram  
Power: White wings, six feet in length tip to tip

Name: Shawnee English  
Power: Feline ears and tail. Extreme agility, heightened hearing, smell, and sight.

Name: Terra Brant  
Powers: Fire abilities, Ninja training, bladed mastery

Name: Jennifer Bourne  
Powers: Telepathy, Psychometry, Telekinesis, unknown if she will develop more  
Disability: Either Schizophrenic or Autistic, no clear diagnosis

Four Girls who had been nothing now are something more than just girls.

After Eric Sacks had been arrested, and Shredder was taken into police custody, the girls were handed off to Master Shredder's trusted employer, Baxter Stockman to oversee. With the advancement of genetics, it has been determined that Subject Jennifer has developed farther along than the others. Subject Gina and Subject Shawnee have not produced any genetic developments, no more than what they already are. Subject Terra can manipulate fire but that is as far as the testing has come for her.

It has been determined that prior to testing Subject Jennifer was probably already showing powers but on a much smaller level. Further testing will only be the answer to why this may have been. Was she born this way or was it developed through rigorous training and testing?

Coded Log: 2042

* * *

**Chapter One**

Michelangelo was a mutant ninja turtle on a mission.

He licked his lips as he looked down at the pizza in his view. Just one bite was all he needed. A single bite before he was forced to go train in the dojo with his three other brothers.

"Mikey!" Raph yelled.

Almost there. He opened the box, his hand was near to picking up a slice of ripe golden cheese pizza. Nearly there, almost there.

Raphael grabbed the back of Mikey's bandana and pulled hard on it, pulling him away from the uneaten box of pizza.

"Come on, Mikey, time for training."

"But, but, but, my pizza." Mikey stammered out.

"You know what Master Splinter will do. I would rather not spend another eleven hours in the Hashi again." The red-banded brother replied pushing him from the kitchen area of the lair.

"Oh." He frowned at his brother.

"Dude, you need to man up," Raph said as they neared where the dojo was located.

"Why? Not like I want to grow up to smell like you." Mikey then laughed.

"Well then maybe you should be smarter, you're always messing up. What if something really bad happened?" Asked a different brother.

Their two other brothers, Leonardo and Donatello, were already in the dojo when Mikey and Raph walked in.

Sour face and all, Mikey looked at his brother. "Why? I like keeping it real, Dude."

Donatello rolled his eyes behind his glasses.

Their master, who was their teacher and their father, walked into the dojo. "What seems to be the trouble, my sons?" The giant mutant rat asked.

Raph shoved Mikey. "Just Mikey. He's being an idiot again."

"No, I'm not."

"Yeah, you are."

"My son?" Master Splinter said as he looked at him.

"I don't want to grow up, I want to stay young forever."

"Turtles do live longer than humans. We'll be old, yes, but…" Donnie stopped when he realized where his talking was leading.

Leo looked down.

"Get in teams of two. Donatello, Michelangelo against Leonardo and Raphael. We will work on grappling today, in case you lose your weapons during a battle." Master Splinter said, his tail twitching slightly.

The four of them groaned but they soon teamed up to face their opponents. It was Raph against Donnie and Leo against Mikey.

Mikey knew that he was going to end up on his shell in no time flat.

* * *

"Jennie, I want you to stay here." Terra said as she looked at the auburn haired girl.

Jennie was sitting on some crates in the warehouse they had been holed up in for the past month. The four of them had found it on a full moon night but that was okay, Jennie liked to watch the moon change night after night. But with all the windows meant that someone could see in so they had to be careful, especially if the Foot were after them.

Gina was up at the windows, her white wings would twitch if she caught sight of something.

Shawnee's tail swished as she kept an eye out at the front of the warehouse near the loading bay. Just outside the tall walls and high windows was the Hudson River that ran along Manhattan. The City that Never Sleeps was a good monicker because no one slept in that side of the city as it were.

"Jennie, say you will stay here," Terra said.

Jennie saw that the sun had gone down, which meant that the others would be going to scout out for things.

"I'll mend the clothes," Jennie said, though it was barely above a whisper. Anything could happen, she reminded herself.

"Thank you," Terra said as she sheathed a small blade into a sheath on her belt. "We'll be back in a couple of hours. Can you keep your mind open until then?"

Jennie nodded as she stood up and headed over to the clothes pile.

She knew where the three of them were going because she could hear Terra's thoughts. Gina was going to scope out a park nearby, Shawnee was going to find some garbage cans to root through near the clothing stores a mile away from the warehouse, and Terra was going to make a mile long round near the warehouse to see if any of those ninjas had found their trail.

It was hard keeping a winged woman concealed but with her wind abilities, Gina was capable of outmaneuvering people. Shawnee's super agility and her feline qualities could get her out of a scrape. Only Terra and Jennie looked somewhat normal.

Finding a needle and thread, scissors and a few needed buttons, salvaging the cloths was something Jennie didn't mind doing. It was something to do to keep her worries off of her but she knew it wasn't possible, she had to keep her mind on The Foot. If the Foot found them, then they would be in real trouble this time.

The three others only had been gone for a little bit when a thought slipped into her menial labor. She looked up.

Someone was outside, near the docks that went into the river.

_Found  
Girls Found  
Come to me_

Jennie walked to a small window and looked out. Even if it was dark out, she should see what was light around someone. And there was a small craft that pulled up, people getting out.

_Bad  
Ninja  
The Foot_

The words flittered through her brain as she read the man on the dock. They actually found where the four of them had been hiding.

Running to the rope and pulling on it, a red banner unfurled and then she ran to the front of the warehouse to escape. She needed to go to the park, that was where Gina was going to be.

"Hey, I found her!" Someone yelled just to her right.

She looked at him and pushed, pushing outwards and sent him into the nearby brick wall so she could run across the barren street.

Terra had taught her how to run. But if there were more, how was she going to outrun them? They were ninjas, trained to be warriors. She was just a mental person with mental issues.

She stopped and had to think, but the more she tried that the more voices entered her head, thoughts of nearby people, of people walking and people in their homes. Husbands yelling, children scared.

Slapping herself in the head, she leaned against a brick wall hoping that the ninjas didn't see her.

"This way!" A man yelled. "She went this way."

She looked and now there were two of them running down the alley towards her.

Fear inched its way into her brain as she used her mind to move the heavy trash dumpster to block their way. Then she ran.

Two streets over, making sure that cars were not coming, either way, Jennie ran. But so did the ninjas, their orders were ringing clear in their minds.

_Get. The. Girls_

She skittered to a stop, only because she didn't know where the park was. In her fear, she had forgotten where Gina had gone to stake out. She cast her senses out, feeling for her friend's mental signature, but she only heard back the ninjas as they ran down two separate alleys towards her.

Looking both ways, Jennie ran across the street and into a nearby alley but at the end was nothing. There was no exit, just a brick wall. Trapped. She was utterly trapped.

"Down here." A voice at the opening of the alley said.

There were six of them, six Foot ninjas. All she could see were their eyes. But she could hear their thoughts as loud as talking.

_Subject Jennifer has been found._

"Come here, girl." The tallest said.

She shook her head. Why, why did she go down this alley? Why didn't she just try to get a police officer?

"_The police will never help us." _Shawnee had said once_. "We're freaks, they won't help us. No one will. We're on our own now."_

The ninjas kept walking towards her. She looked away. There was nothing that she could do, there was nothing she could do.

"Hey guys, miss me?" Someone from overhead said.

In the dark, a large figure jumped down and landed between Jennie and the ninjas. It cast a shadow down on her but from where she was, she could see a pattern on it's what was it… Shell? It had a shell? Like a turtle?

"It's one of them freaks." A voice from the back of the pack said.

They surged forward but the thing was faster. Even if he was faster, he was a little sloppy. Terra was more skilled than he was, from the amount of practice Jennie watched her friend.

One of the ninjas kicked something out of her savior's hand. It landed near her feet. Yet, even with one less twirling weapon, the creature still fought back, laughing the entire time and whooping with glee every time he had knocked out a ninja.

"Whoo!"

Jennie jumped and covered her ears when that creature yelled in happiness. Though, she realized, she couldn't hear his thoughts, not like the ninjas or the people in the buildings around them. There was dead silence from the thing that saved her from the Foot.

"Hey, hey, sorry about that, sweetheart." The thing said as he inched closer.

She looked at it. The bald head, wide features of a face. In the very low light she couldn't see much of his features but from the looks of his arms, he was well trained, and strong maybe.

She looked down. She eyed the weapon, a set of nunchucks, that was laying in the shadow of the alley nearby.

"You don't have to be afraid. Actually, you're the first human to not scream. If you had been rescued by my bro Raph, you would have had a heart attack, no doubt about it."

Something cracked and the creature dipped its head to listen.

"Aw man, Leo, come on." He whined.

Jennie looked while the creature stood sideways. Even if her heart

"Well, I did take out a dozen Foot Ninjas on my own. Ow!"

She heard someone yelling out of what looked like a radio attached to his shell. Who was he talking to?

"Yeah, yeah, I'll tie them up and call Casey. But um, someone may have seen me. AH!" He yelped as another loud voice came through. "Dude, dude, settle down, she hasn't said anything. She's sort of, well, not talking. No, no, not fainted, and no, Leo, she wasn't hurt by the Foot. Gosh, what's with all the questions. Yeah, yeah, regroup."

Jennie almost smiled at his weirdness.

He turned back to her. "So, uh, I have to go." He rubbed the back of his head. "Thank you for not screaming in my face, you know."

She looked towards him, mostly at the orange bandana that was covering his face. He had a wide nose, but it wasn't a human nose. Though he sounded like a very bad surfer from those old surfer movies she watched back in the Facility, she caught the shadowed bright blue eyes that the creature had. Nice eyes, not mean like the ninjas.

And just like that, he had left. Jumping from one fire escape to the other, he clambered back up to the rooftop and disappeared in the night.

Jennie pulled her sleeve over her hand, picked up the fallen weapon and ran out of the alley, hoping that none of the ninjas were going to wake up and find her again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

It wasn't peachy when he met up with his brothers, but Mikey was smiling as no one spoke all the way to the lair. Masters of the Shadows, that's what the four of them were. He only liked to believe that he was the best.

"What do you mean Mikey was seen?" Donnie asked when they got back to the lair.

"The Foot has been spotted all over Manhattan," Leo said as he looked over at Mikey.

Mikey, though not really understanding why his brothers were looking at him like that, shrugged.

"Well, at least she didn't faint."

"She could tell someone!" Leo raised his voice.

"Relax, even this dufus knows that no one is going to believe some little girl about seeing a giant turtle."

"What would The Foot want with one girl?" Donnie asked.

"I probably would have asked her, but you guys have to check up on me all the time." Mikey then sat down at the nearby couch.

The three of them looked at Mikey.

"What? At least she didn't scream. She was kinda cute, you know. Reddish brown hair, emerald eyes. She was, you know, cute. Plus, plus, she was in trouble."

"The odds of a human female not screaming at us is astronomical, even the fainting ones count. It is a ninety-eight percent chance that everyone will eventually scream and run away." Donatello said.

Mikey rolled his eyes because he did not really care about what his brother was saying. He found one girl that didn't scream at him.

"Well, she didn't faint. She looked scared, duh."

"Mikey, you know what Master Splinter has always said. The world up there isn't all be accepting of what we are." Leo said.

"I know, I know, Leo. But you didn't see her, you didn't see, ah you weren't there. How can I explain it if you weren't there?"

"Maybe we should find out why The Foot was after her," Donnie said.

Mikey knew that now they were going to talk about why the Foot would be after the girl but he was preoccupied with her looks.

She was cute, a round face with big eyes and long reddish-brown hair. Though her wardrobe could use some work. It looked like she scavenged for her shirt in a dumpster somewhere. But that was what Mikey and his brothers did from an early age, scavenging scraps of clothes from tiny tots to teenagers.

While Leo and Donnie talked about possibilities as to why the Foot was going after this girl, Raph took a more direct approach. He stared at his younger brother.

Mikey looked up at him. "What?" He asked.

"Where's your other nunchuck?" Raph asked.

Usually tucked into a strap of leather around his waist, Mikey looked down. There was one, but there wasn't the other.

"Man, I must have dropped it." He said rubbing his head.

"Mikey," Raph rubbed his hand down his own face. "Look, if you're going to be a crime fighter, you have to be professional. One of these days, we aren't going to be there to get your shell out of trouble."

"Yeah, whatever. I'll just get Donnie to make me a new pair. Or Leo." He popped up out of his seat. "I'm hungry. Is there any more of that pizza left?"

He heard Raph growl from behind him as he headed to the kitchen area to look for more pizza.

* * *

_**2, 4, 7, 9**_

Running her thumb over the roughened wood of the nunchucks, Jennie pressed the numbers on the keypad next to a hidden door.

The Mikey, as she heard from the imprints in his weapon, she knew was a turtle now. She saw faces of three other things, loud voices, and then she had to rewind farther to figure out how he got in and out of the sewers.

The door hissed open and she looked inside. The place was big, big and open. It smelled musty but that was why the water was coming in from the sewer mains. It was one of those water purifying places that had been decommissioned but was now up and running again. Water flowed into it but there was a rat, a Sensei, who was meditating in a ring of candles on a grate somewhere in the middle.

_Sensei, Master Splinter._ She kept rubbing the worn wood as she looked around. The weapon had been resting in a room off to the left of the entrance from where she had walked in. _Room, home, comics_: these were things that Mikey liked.

The rat stood up. "May I help you, child?" He asked.

She looked at him but she looked away slightly because she was more interested in looking at his tail that came out of his robes and wrapped halfway around his legs, much as Shawnee did when she was sitting.

Rat, it was a giant rat. Not that she cared, she was living with a part bird woman and a feline girl that could rip a man's face off.

Shaking her head, she had to focus, Terra was always telling her to focus.

"Where is Mikey?" Jennie asked, knowing that her voice was light, but knew rats had sensitive hearing.

"Who the hell are you?" One of the turtles demanded after he had jumped from somewhere up high.

He was not Mikey, because Mikey was less gruff, plus Mikey was bubbly and talked nice at least for a rejected surfer guy. This one growled, more animal than human. Of course like Mikey, this one was a turtle.

"Raphael," the rat said.

She looked at the floor, crossing her arms and closing her eyes. She tried to read this turtle but she couldn't, it was a blank. Not like when she could read the minds of the Ninjas.

_Focus, breathe_, Terra would tell her.

_Focus, breathe, focus and breathe._

The figure was big, bigger than what Mikey was and even Mikey was big. Over his face and part of his head, he wore a red mask. Mikey was orange, a little bit torn at the ends. This one had brown eyes. Mikey's were blue.

"Hey there, sweet cheeks, have you been following me?" She heard Mikey say.

Jennie looked at him. _Focus and breathe_; so Jennie focused on his necklaces, they looked like cowrie shells. He was shoved back by the bigger turtle.

"Did you tell her where to find us?" The big one asked.

"No, I didn't say anything. Well, nothing that I wouldn't have said." Mikey looked at him.

Another one, tall and slim came into view. He was a little bit taller than the bigger red-clad turtle. This one wore purple, but he had gizmos and gadgets hanging off of him, one looked like a mechanical backpack. The next one was taller than Mikey but shorter than the red and the purple-clad turtles. His swords caught her attention, only because Terra would have liked them.

They kept looking at her.

"Who are you?" Blue-clad turtle asked.

"Jennie Bourne." She said.

"Why are you here?" Red asked.

She held up the weapon. It was partially wrapped in orange tape. "You dropped this, Mikey."

He faltered. "Wait, I didn't tell you my name."

"Raph," she glanced the Red one. "Leo," then at the blue one. "Donnie." Then she gestured off towards the rat. "Master Splinter."

"She knows our names. She's with Shredders goons." Raph took a step towards her. He was stopped by Leo who put a hand on his brother's chest.

"I need to sit down." Jennie turned and looked around. "I won't be a threat if I sit own."

A chair slid out from the side of the area, scraping across the floor towards her open hand. It only stopped when the back of the metal chair rested in her hand. Jennie sat down. If she looked even smaller, then maybe Raph wouldn't hurt her.

"So cool. You're superhuman. Can you fly?" Mikey asked, almost jumping up and down from where he was standing.

"I don't know." She said. "I don't think so. I move things with my mind. Psychometry is what brought me here."

"What kind of superpower is that?"

"Psychometry is a pseudoscience stating that all things leave imprints of someone who touched an object and can be read by someone else. It has never been proven." Donnie said.

She looked at the ceiling, watched the running water falling down at the center of the living area. It may have smelled but it felt good.

"I saw Sacks." She said as she wrapped both hands around Mikey's weapon. "Shredder, him, yes that one. He was the boss."

She started rocking. She rocked where she stood. Breathing and focusing were hard to do when she knew they were fearful of humans. The images, the flashes from the weapon told her one story of what happened not all that long ago to him and the others.

"They tried to make more of it. That green stuff. Then the purple stuff."

"The mutagens?" Donnie asked.

She shrugged. "When Sacks was arrested, his people took us away to Stockman. It was far away. Us all of us."

"I don't understand. Who is us?" Leo asked.

"The others, like me but they aren't like me. Only four of us got out, there are others but I can't find them."

"There's more of you?" Donnie asked.

She looked at Mikey. She looked down and held out the weapon. "Are you asking about the ones that escaped with me or the ones that haven't escaped?"

"The ones who escaped."

"Then yes, three others. Terra, Shawnee, and Gina."

"Girls?" Donnie asked. His voice seemed to strain but Jennie didn't know why.

"I was the first. I was the discarded one." Jennie said.

"Oh, brother." Raph turned away.

Mikey took his nunchuck back but he squatted down to her level. "Hi, Jennie."

She looked at him. He had blue eyes, just as she thought he had. But he held a really big hand out to her. It was big with a thumb and two fingers.

She looked for an escape but he was right in front of her.

"I can't read you." She said. "I hear thoughts, the voices of people's thoughts. But I can't hear yours."

"Telepathy too? That is like dope powers. You can move things with your mind and read people's minds!" He said loudly. "I am staring at a true superhuman."

"But you're not people." She said. "You're a turtle. You're not a human. You're animal. I can't read animal thoughts. I can even speak to Terra and Gina in their minds."

Leo approached. "You said you were discarded. What do you mean by that?"

"No one wants a retard." She looked away from him.

"What's that, another superpower?" Mikey asked.

"Stupid, dumb, can't do anything right. Retard." She rattled off, remembering memories of a life before all of this.

"Retard means suppressed, like fire retardant," Donnie said. "It doesn't mean any of what you said, Jennie."

"My parents did. They called me retarded. The doctors called me retarded. They said that I won't live to be normal. Put her in a home, we don't care." She said in a deep voice, mimicking her father and what he said. "They left me when I started hearing the voices. The people gave me medicine to stop the voices."

"Wait, because you were different, your parents put you in a facility?" Donnie asked.

She nodded.

"And they were giving her drugs just to make her compliant," Leo said.

Jennie offered a shrug but she glanced at Mikey. He had moved to the side of her as if he was inspecting her like all the doctors and scientists had done before.

"How did you end up with Sacks?" Leo asked.

She saw Raph return from wherever he had gone. "She claimed to be family. The woman called herself Aunt Karai."

"Oh shit," cursed Raphael from off in the distance.

"Go on," Leo said in a more hard tone.

"They took me to a lab, I was the first. They wanted others like me, no family. No hope. I hated the needles but they kept me on my meds, only to take me off when they wanted me to do something."

"My sons," their Sensei said as he approached. "She is in need of help."

_Focus, breathe, focus and breathe._

"I can't find my three friends. Can you help me?" She asked looking at the turtles, each in turn. "Can you help me find them?"

* * *

**Hope you liked it. More to come soon.**


End file.
